


Diapason

by Dassandre



Series: Word of the Day Fics [6]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Light Angst, M/M, Mental Anguish, sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-23 09:40:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16156457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dassandre/pseuds/Dassandre
Summary: Long missions typically meant too much time alone.  And whilst he was as comfortable in his own skin alone as he was in the midst of dozens or hundreds of people, isolation meant quiet which often led to too much time inside his own head.  Too much time thinking.Never a good thing.





	Diapason

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Boffin1710](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boffin1710/gifts).



> A quick drabble. 
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> 
> Barely betaed by myself.

For years now he slept poorly -- if at all -- in the days coming off a long assignment.  It was never an issue after a short one. Not even for those quick, in-and-out assassinations of foreign dictators whose ideologies ran counter to the best interests and well-being of Her Majesty’s kingdom.  It was as if the drawing out of the mission had a similar effect on his mind, embedding the task and what he had to do to achieve it firmly into his psyche where it lay dormant until he tried to sleep when suddenly the memories became anything but benign.

It hadn’t always been this way.

He used to be able to slough those off as skillfully as an adder sheds its scaly skin, but not so much anymore.

Age?  Experience?  

Not regret.  No.

 _Never_  regret.

Long missions typically meant too much time alone.  And whilst he was as comfortable in his own skin alone as he was in the midst of dozens or hundreds of people, isolation meant _quiet_ which often led to too much time inside his own head.  Too much time thinking.

Never a good thing.

So he’d perfected the skill of pushing those traumas and horrors and tragedies -- the ones that were all-too-often the foundation of a long mission -- to the back of his mind where they would stay.

For awhile.

Until he was home and tried to sleep.

Then all the demons came skulking out of their dark corners and into the dim light to torment him.

Quite skilled they were, those malignant fiends, at getting him to tear at his own soul.  At dragging him down into the pit of a hellish miasma so thick that he often woke choking on it.

Screaming into an empty room.

The shrinks were tedious and unhelpful, but he hadn’t the light in his own soul to banish the demons on his own.

Then he discovered he didn’t have to.  He was no longer _on_ his own.

Q’s psyche was equally damaged.  You didn’t do the things Q did and see the things Q saw -- even by proxy -- and walk away unscathed.  And Christ knew the Quartermaster’s coping methods were as bad as a Double-O’s because his demons were equally as vicious.

But unlike a Double-O, at least unlike _this_ Double-O, Q still retained some small spark of virtue and grace that he could stoke to a conflagration of light radiant enough to send the most stalwart of demons running for the shadows again.

It was his giggle, you see.

Quick and bright and goofy, nothing dark could survive long in the diapason of Q’s laughter.  

And when the sound of that light reached him from the bullpen to where he lay on the outrageously comfortable sofa in Q’s office -- barely awake, caught in the face of the approaching nightmare with panic’s self-aggrandizing fingers reaching for him --  he sighed in comfort, rolled to face the back cushions, and within a few now calm and steady heartbeats, slept peacefully, the top of his blond head barely visible over the throw which had been tossed over him an hour before.

Q’s melodious titter had once again chased the ghouls back to their dank cells.  
  
Safe.

Til the next time.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 **Word of the Day:**  Diapason (noun)

 

A full, rich outpouring of melodious sound; the compass of a voice or instrument.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think. This writer could definitely stand some comments and kudos. I'm not shy, but I am needy. ;)


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